A COMPLETE GUIDE
If you’re wondering whether social media could help grow your roofing company and build long-term client relationships, this article is for you.
There are 295 million social network users in the United States. That’s a lot of people who might need your roofing services. Not being active on social media could mean you’re missing out on lead generation, referrals and contracts.
Make platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter work for you by following our guide to social media marketing for roofers.
Stand out from competitors: in today’s competitive market, you need to stand out to stay in business. Social media provides you with opportunities to engage with customers, promote and grow your roofing business. Start by finding out what your competitors are offering by looking at their social media profiles. This will allow you to improve your own social media marketing strategy and make yourself stand out with a stronger brand voice and more engaging visual content. Social media has become an essential part of any business’s marketing strategy, but to make the time, effort and cost worthwhile you need to set yourself apart from competitors by making your brand and profiles unique. Most roofing companies don’t use social media, so why not get ahead and put yours online first?
Get new clients: recommendations from past customers who loved your work can be the golden ticket for new opportunities, especially on social media. Offline, satisfied clients help grow your business by spreading the word about your roofing business to friends and family. Now imagine somebody doing that on a network with thousands of followers who may need roofing services. Social media allows you to request reviews from your customer base or you can add direct links to your emails and newsletters to encourage people to let you know what they liked about your company.
Increase your visibility in search engine results: when somebody wants to look for a reputable roofer, they are probably going to use keywords such as “where can I find an experienced roofer to fix my roof?” in search engines. Having an online community that reinforces the quality of your services that will tell Google what you do, increasing your visibility so your company lists higher in the search results.
Roofing marketing doesn’t feel quite so daunting when you have a clear and actionable strategy in place. Here are the essential elements that you should include in yours:
1. Clear, actionable and realistic goals
A winning social media strategy should be a plan of everything you need to do to achieve your social media marketing goals. The more detailed your plan is, the more effective it will be.
An example of a social media marketing goal for roofers could be to increase sales by 15% through using Instagram to generate leads within three months.
2. Your key demographic
The people you want to reach on your social media channels are your key demographic. If you’re not sure exactly who that is, ask yourself the following key questions:
• How old is your target customer? Knowing the answer to this question will help you decide which platforms to advertise on. For example, if your demographic is age 50+, only 11% of TikTok users are over 50, which means your ads won’t get seen by many people in your target audience range.
• Where does your customer live? You can set your ads to advertise in a specific area where you know a large proportion of your ideal customers live. Advertising in this way is more likely to get you the results that you want. Save your ad budget and focus on the people that are more likely to purchase your services.
• Where do your customers spend most of their time online? This includes which social network your target customer spends their time on, what online magazines or blogs they read and any influencers that they follow. This will dictate which digital marketing channels you use.
Understanding your target audience will allow you to use messages in your ads that your customer base want to hear, making them much more effective.
3. Decide which platforms to use
Using the same social platforms as your customers is key to successful social media marketing. For roofers, your key demographic will be homeowners. While some businesses are successful advertising on all social media platforms, not many 16-24 year olds will own their own homes, so you may want to focus on more popular networks with your target audience such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. You could also consider using Facebook advertising to increase your reach.
4. The metrics you will use to analyze performance
Analyzing the performance of your social media ads and campaigns is the only way to find out if you have met your objectives. Monitoring engagement rates, reach, followers and customer satisfaction will provide you with the valuable data you need to improve your social media strategy.
If you’re struggling with inspiration on what to post on your platforms, you’re not alone. Lots of businesses are not sure what they should be posting on their business profiles.
Social media-friendly content that is interactive, reliable and news-worthy will keep your followers engaged and enable them to build a relationship with your brand.
Here are some ideas to get you started.
• Share before and after pictures or videos of your recent roofing projects.
• Host a Q&A live event on Facebook to give your followers the chance to ask you questions that they may have about your business.
• Provide your followers with roofing-related/home improvement tips. You could use infographics or videos to grab people’s attention and teach them something useful, for example, how to safely remove snow from a roof.
• Partner with relevant local businesses to create interesting content for your followings. You could team up with a housing inspector to share advice on what they look for during a roof inspection.
• Keep an eye on industry news and share articles from high-quality sources that you think your readers would be interested in. Posting content about building trends of house renovations are good examples to use.
• Share behind-the-scenes videos or pictures of your team working.
• Create content that gives your followers a chance to get to know the team through light-hearted interview-style videos.
• Run a competition or giveaway to drive engagement and attract new followers to your profile.
Unfortunately, advertising on social media is not free but the return on investment can be huge – especially for a roofing company. There are two options to consider: either outsource to an agency or freelance Social Media Manager or use tools to do it in-house. We look at the costs involved for each. The Business Development Bank of Canada advises that B2C companies should spend between 5-10% of their revenue on marketing.
Outsourcing: this can cost you anywhere between $1,000 to $20,000 per month depending on how complicated your social media strategy is and how many platforms you advertise on. More experienced agencies will charge you more for their experience too. An agency will use its time, resources, tools and expertise to manage your social media accounts and help you achieve your online marketing goals. One of the many benefits of hiring an agency is that some offer flexible contracts that you can cancel if you no longer require the services.
In-house: whilst you might think this would be a cheaper option, you need to factor in the cost of a member of staff’s salary and training costs on top of the tools they will need to do a good job managing your roofing social media pages. If you want to avoid paying training costs, an experienced Social Media Manager will cost you $54,000 a year, however, regular refresher training will be required to make sure your roofer marketing reflects current trends. Social media management tools such as Hootsuite and Agorapulse can help you save time by streamlining workflows and ensuring your content reaches the right audience. Prices vary between $54-79, depending on the package you choose. Keeping your social media marketing in-house is a good option if long-term value is important to your roofing business.
The example figures above may seem a lot of money, but considering that your clients are likely to be spending thousands of dollars on a new roof or repair work, even if advertising on social media gained you a few new clients every month, it’s worth doing.
All local businesses should learn how to do social media marketing well, even roofers. When used correctly, advertising your services online can have a huge positive impact on your roofing business and roofing contractors. Once you’ve established a strategy and are posting consistent high-quality content, share it wherever you can. Add links to your profiles on your promotional materials, website and business cards.
Trial and error is part of the digital marketing strategy process, so don’t worry if you need to make adjustments along the way. Patience and perseverance will ensure you nail your social media marketing for roofers.
Looking for more information on how to market your business? Take a look at our recent articles.
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